Hired Sword Chapter 1
by mikeymoodle
Summary: Yasu, a solo adventurer and hired hitman, takes on a mission to retrieve a treasured jewel from the belly of an eagle. Watch as his quests grow more dangerous and intriguing as he rises through the levels of Sword Art Online!


Chapter 1

The night was bitter. Yasu twisted the empty poison bottle in his fingers. He usually made it a rule to steer clear of the dangerous liquid, but this job required it, and he wasn't about to let 10,000 Col slip through his grasp so easily. The job itself had required a little creative thinking, but Yasu was certain that his plan would work. Almost.

A nocturnal bird that builds its nest on the tree tops of a forest on Level 12 carries a Star Ruby in its stomach. An A-Class rare ingredient, not the most sought after item, but not something one comes across on a day-to-day basis. Though under a skilled hand, it can be used to create powerful items that many would pay a pretty penny for.

There's no way to scale the trees without disturbing the bird and thus causing it to flee, and the leaves are too dense to see through from the ground. This is where the poison came in. He'd paid an information broker for some data on the local flora and fauna, and discovered that the bird feeds at pond on the outskirts of the forest, snatching the smaller koi fish floundering in the crystal waters. He'd considered hiding under the water, and striking from below when the bird attempted to fish, but in the end he'd taken a more subtle approach.

He'd poisoned the fish. They weren't dead, it was just a sleeping potion; not that it mattered either way, Yasu wasn't much of an animal lover. In the real world he was an exterminator, specialising in larger vermin like rats and moles. And in this world he had even less sympathy for the critters he encountered.

Yasu waited at the base of a solitary tree near to the pond and watched the fish with a focused grimace. He had been waiting for nearly two hours for his prey to arrive, and was staring blankly into space when he was startled back into concentration by the screech of his long-awaited prize. He scanned the sky above, and could just make out the shape of a crimson eagle highlighted against the velvet sky. He dropped the bottle and took a silver knife from his inventory, keeping his eyes locked on the bird. Yasu waited patiently as the eagle spiralled down towards the pond, and after a while it sat perched on a rock, glaring at its next meal.

The poison shouldn't take more than a few seconds to take effect, he thought, but he'd be lucky if it lasted for more than half a minute. He'd have just enough time to run over to the bird, retrieve it's slumbering body, and gut the poor sod before it woke up.

Yasu watched the bird intensely. It moved in slow motion as it jumped from the rock and dove into the water, cutting the surface like a bullet through glass. It resurfaced in an instant with a small orange fish hanging limply in its beak.

Almost. Yasu waited for the moment to run. He prepared to stand as he watched the bird fly back to its previous ledge. It lifted its head and released its grip on the fish, allowing it to slide quickly into the back of its throat. A few more seconds. The bird lowered its head again, and like a cheetah stalking its prey through the savannah, Yasu leapt to his feet and sprinted towards the bird. The crimson shape went limp and began to tumble down the rockface. It plummeted to the earth and Yasu saw its health bar decrease a little as it hit the hard ground below.

A moment later he was at the bird. He turned the creature over and laid it on its back, exposing its belly to the sky. The feathers were soft, and seemed so much more vivid now that he was up close. The fiery plumes glimmered under the moonlight, and Yasu couldn't help but silently admire their elegance. The eagle was bigger than he had previously thought too. Much bigger. Its wingspan must have been at least the same height as him, and it looked as though its mouth could hold a small dog. For a second, the majestic beauty of the bird triggered a timid empathy in the hunter, but before long Yasu remembered his purpose and plunged his knife deep into the tender body of the eagle. As his knife entered its body, the bird awoke and cried out in pain, before wrenching its body weakly, and finally succumbing to its fate.

Yasu ignored the health bar as it decreased sharply, and forced his hand into the bloody gut of the bird, searching frantically for the loot. He would need to find it before the body vanished otherwise his venture was all for naught. The health bar was almost at its end, when suddenly the cold, smooth surface of the Star Ruby touched against Yasu's fingertips. He reached further into the gory mass and gripped the stone tightly. He'd done it.

Before he even had time to remove his hand, the entire bird shattered in a flash of white light; its shards disappearing into the cold early morning air, leaving the treasured jewel in the bloody grip of its new owner.


End file.
